Best budjet
What about Chromebooks? If you already have a computer in your house that can run full x86 apps and are just looking for a cheap second computer for web browsing, email, and office work, you may not need a full Windows computer at all. If I didn’t need access to a full operating system, I’d skip Windows, save a few hundred dollars, and pick up a Chromebook. Since I have a desktop computer that I use for intensive work, I’d take the Dell Chromebook over any of our budget laptop picks for use as a secondary machine.Chromebooks run a stripped-down Linux variant called ChromeOS, but essentially it’s a computer that does everything Google’s Chrome browser can do and pretty much nothing else. HP, Samsung, Acer, Dell, and Toshiba all make Chromebooks under $300, and our current favorite is the Dell Chromebook 11, which you can read about in our full Chromebook article. Since I have a desktop computer that I use for intensive work, I’d take the Dell Chromebook over any of our budget laptop picks for use as a secondary machine. Heck, what about a tablet? Plenty of people don’t actually need a laptop at all. For browsing, scanning your email, social media, watching video and playing games, a tablet could be all you need. You’re the best judge of your own situation, of course, but if you have a computer at home and don’t need a second thing with a permanently-attached keyboard, consider a tablet. They’re much smaller and lighter, can do an increasingly large percentage of the things a computer can do, and are easier to use and maintain. We prefer the iPad Mini with Retina, iPad Air, and Google Nexus 7, depending on which platform you prefer and what kind of tablet user you are. If you need to write longer emails or documents, pair with a good Bluetooth keyboardor even a keyboard case. Some people, like tech writer Harry McCracken, can even get away with using an iPad instead of a computer, even for serious work. This is probably best for people whose work involves basic research, writing, and email. Not so much for students, heavy spreadsheet users, photo and video editors, or people who rely on specific Windows or Mac apps for work. Or if you’re an executive who goes to a lot of meetings and wants to look cool. What about those Windows tablets/convertibles like the Asus Transformer T100? We did consider the Asus Transformer T100 for this article. It’s small, sleek, well-built, has a long battery life, runs real Windows, and is popular both with reviewers (AnandTech, PCMag, Laptop, CNET) and real people. Our own Geoff Morrison brought one to CES this year as his only computer and couldn’t stop talking about it. It costs $400 (though third parties jack up the price if Amazon is out of stock) and for that you get a quad-core Atom processor, 2 GB of RAM, 64GB of a slowish eMMC SSD, full Windows 8.1, a detachable keyboard, and all-day battery life. I have large hands, so I found the keyboard of the T100 too small for prolonged use. The trackpad isn’t great for me either, and it’s easy to get the T100 bogged down with too many browser tabs. But if you have smaller hands and lighter workloads, it might be more comfortable to use. It’s a good choice for a lot of people who need a highly portable secondary computer that runs Windows. But since this piece is mostly focused on people with under $600 to spend on their only computer, we’re focusing on more powerful laptops with bigger screens and keyboards, better processors, and more RAM and storage space. We saw a lot of cool tablets and convertibles at CES this year, and if any of them turn out to be good we’ll do a guide. The competition There’s no shortage of reputable sites that review laptops, but they don’t always review the same models, and they tend to skip over cheap laptops in favor of flashier, more expensive ones. We looked at “best budget laptop” stories from PCMag, AnandTech, PCWorld,TechRadar, and CNET. We eliminated anything not running full Windows 7 or 8, anything with an Ivy Bridge or earlier processor, and anything less powerful than a current-gen Core i3. We prioritized configurations with i5 processors and good battery life. Touchscreens are basically a wash—nice to have but not necessary. When I called in the Dell Inspiron 14R Touch, I expected it to be the best of the finalists. On paper it meets all of our criteria for a budget laptop: its $650 configuration has a Core i3-4010U, 4GB of RAM, and a 500GB hard drive, its battery lasts all day, and it even has an optical drive. But in real life it’s thick and heavy, and its trackpad consistently freezes during two-finger scrolling. The optical drive isn’t worth the $100 premium over the Flex 14, and the trackpad is a dealbreaker. PCWorld wasn’t wild about it either, giving it a 3.5 star review. AnandTech’s Jarred Walton’s holiday 2013 budget laptop guide starts low, with a Chromebook, mentions the E1 and the Aspire V5, then goes into laptops that are either unreviewed or out of our price range, though it’s a good place to look if your budget is around $750. PCMag’s “Ten Best Budget Laptops” is a good overview and manages to include nine Editors’ Choice laptops. However, two of the ten are Chromebooks, one runs Windows RT, three are running last-gen processors, and one is the Asus T100. That leaves three contenders: an Acer Aspire V5 and two Dell Inspirons, one 15-incher and one 17-incher. The Inspiron 17 is tempting, but a 1600×900 screen on a 17-inch laptop is…not good. Also, 17 inches is just too big for most people. Ideally we’d get something more portable. The Inspiron 15 they reviewed is very inexpensive, and might suit you if you only have $350 to spend, but there’s another Inspiron, not on their budget laptop list, that I think is the sleeper hit here. It’s the Inspiron 14R Touch, which is their current Editors’ Choice award for budget desktop replacement computers (the U430 Touch is their Editors’ Choice for entry-level ultrabooks). The Asus X550LB-NH52 gets praise from AnandTech’s Jarred Walton, and if you can spend $670 you’ll get a Core i5-4200U, 8 GB of RAM and a 750 GB hard drive, plus Nvidia GT 740M discrete graphics. I’ve used it for a bit and found it to be a solid performer, although the large trackpad’s palm rejection is pretty bad and the screen is your typical 1366×768 TN with bad viewing angles. Gaming performance is decent for such a cheap machine, though: I got around 40fps on Tomb Raider’s “normal” settings and 33fps on Bioshock Infinite’s medium presets. If you want a laptop that can play modern games on medium settings, this is one of the cheapest ways to get it–although I’d always suggest a desktop for PC gamers on a budget. Laptop Mag’s December “Top Ten Laptops Now” article favors the HP Pavilion 11z, which is an $400 11-inch budget laptop with an AMD A4 APU. The 3.5-star review, though, uses phrases like “don’t expect to multitask much,” and for the price and form factor we’d prefer something better-reviewed like the Asus Transformer T100. PCMag likes the Toshiba Satellite E45T-A4300, but not enough to dethrone the similarly-priced but higher-res Lenovo U430 Touch. The $700 Acer Aspire M5 got good reviews from Laptop Mag, but it’s above our price range. There are dozens of other laptops in this price range, but those are the ones worth calling out specifically. What makes a good budget laptop anyway? The top three budget laptops. Let’s back up and talk about how we settled on our cheap laptop criteria. Basically we’re looking for a laptop with as much all-around functionality as possible for under $600. Not the absolute cheapest computer-like object you can get, but something you can use every day and be reasonably happy with for a few years. We’re assuming this is your main or only computer, whether you’re a student on a budget, a one-computer household, or someone looking for a primary machine of their own. Because we’re assuming this is a primary machine, it has to be able to do as much as possible for the money. A tablet or Chromebook can cover 80 percent of your computing needs and is great as a secondary device (or a primary device for someone with pretty simple needs), but this guide is written for people who need one device that can do everything. That means we’re looking for a Windows computer. Macbooks start around $1,000, and Linux isn’t user-friendly enough for most people. Plus, Windows has more compatible software. Because most of the attention goes to flashy Macbooks and sleek ultrabooks, it’s easy to forget that the average price people pay for a new laptop is south of $500. A lot of computers under $500 are janky in build quality, underpowered, and unpleasant to use. Remember netbooks? Paul Thurrott is one of the folks who blame a glut of underpowered netbooks in 2008-2010 era for getting people used to buying inexpensive, underpowered crap. “You get what you pay for” is as true on the low end as it is on the high end, and most laptops under $500 make a lot of compromises to get to that price: they skimp on RAM or drive space and have low-resolution screens and entry-level processors. It’s hard to find a decent laptop under $500 at all. When you get up to the $750 and $800 range you start getting into really good stuff, often with the same under-the-hood specs as pricier ultrabooks, albeit without all the bells and whistles. After hours of research and specs comparisons, I settled on a price range of $650 or below as a sweet spot of sorts. …when you buy a laptop, you’re buying time—time until you have to upgrade again. You want your computer to be usable for as long as possible, not frustrating right out of the box.Laptops in this range are powerful enough for most people, with a solid step-up in build quality and performance from the sub-$500 crowd, but not a whole lot more than people are used to paying for a crappy laptop. I know that every dollar counts, but the better laptop you get now, the less frustration you’ll have, now and in the future. Really, when you buy a laptop, you’re buying time—time until you have to upgrade again. You want your computer to be usable for as long as possible, not frustrating right out of the box. Here’s what I’m looking for in a laptop in this price range: A dual-core Haswell processor, at least a Core i3 but ideally an i5. At least 4 GB of RAM and 500 GB of storage. An SSD would be really nice, because they make a computer feel a whole lot faster, but it’s not really doable at this price range, and if this is your only computer you’ll want the extra storage space a hard drive gives you. At best we can get a small caching SSD to help with the most frequent tasks. If you get the right laptop, you can also swap the hard drive for an SSD (like our pick) later when you can afford it. Any laptop by now should have USB 3.0 ports, onboard 802.11n WiFi (preferably dual-band) and Bluetooth 4.0, an SD card reader, and a way to connect an external monitor. Any non-Ultrabook should have an Ethernet port, too. The keyboard and trackpad should be usable enough that you don’t need to plug in an external mouse or keyboard unless you want to, and battery life should be above average, especially if you’re a student taking your laptop to class. A touchscreen isn’t a must-have. It’s useful for the modern UI Microsoft introduced with Windows 8, but that interface has very few apps worth using. If you’re spending most of your time on the traditional desktop, skipping a touchscreen is a good way to save weight and cut costs. An optical drive is a bonus. The more portable, the better; you’re not gonna get ultrabook specs and portability at this price point, but you should be able to throw your laptop in a bag and go. It’s also good to have the RAM and drive slots easily accessible. Upgrading your RAM andadding an SSD can put new life into an older machine, and it’s nice to be able to start out with the basics and add more as funds permit. Care and feeding Most budget laptops come with plenty of extra software preinstalled. This stuff usually isn’t included because it’s useful; it’s included because the company that made it paid the laptop manufacturer to put it there. Use Decrap to clean away the bloatware andNinite to install the useful apps you actually want to use. Last year’s model Most of the mid-2014 laptops are just mid-2013 laptops with a very slight processor upgrade, so last year’s models aren’t a bad idea as long as they have Haswell Core i3, i5, or i7 processors. Those are processors with a model number that starts with 4, e.g. the Core i5-4200U. Last year’s Flex 14 and 15 aren’t bad ideas, nor are the Acer Aspire E1s if you can get a good config. What to look forward to New budget laptops are coming out all the time, and convertible/tablets are getting better all the time. We’ll keep this up-to-date as they do. Wrapping it up There’s no such thing as a great budget laptop, but we think that the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 2 14 is pretty good in all the right area, which is as close to great as you can get in this price range. If you want one computer for all your computing needs, it’s the one to get. But the number of people who really need a fully-functional computer in this price range is shrinking rapidly. Again, if you don’t actually need all the capabilities provided by a full-on laptop, you can save a lot of money by going for a Chromebook or Windows convertible tablet.